Resurrection and Forgiveness
by HoweverImprobable
Summary: Sherlock returns to find John at a restaurant with his girlfriend. Hoping for a quick reconciliation, he announces his presence to John. John doesn't take it as well as he'd hoped. Written for ughbenedict's tumblr prompt.


Sherlock had spent the last three years trying to work out what he would say to John when he returned. He had known that he would return, because doing anything else had never been an option. More than anything, he'd wanted to give John that miracle he'd requested. John was a good man; he deserved that. So every day during his absence, Sherlock had planned how he would announce his presence to John once his task was finished.

When that day finally arrived, when he was finished eliminating the last of the threat, he decided that he needed to see John right away. He'd waited long enough. He'd been alone for long enough.

During his time away, he'd survived despite the fact that there had been no one to remind him to eat or sleep; no one to nag him about leaving his things scattered about the flat; no one to ground him, or to be his conductor of light. He'd been utterly alone, with only the memory of his strange domesticity with John to bring him comfort.

Now, he was ready to get back his old life with John. He needed to get back his old life with John. Being alone again was now no longer an option.

He had sought out John almost immediately. He'd gone to see Mrs Hudson and Lestrade first. He told himself that he'd done this to get practice in breaking the news of his survival to others. In reality, though, it was less about practice and more due to the fact that Lestrade and Mrs Hudson would be easier to deal with. It wasn't that he was avoiding John. No, never that. He simply knew that John would take the news more harshly than anyone else. He needed to work his way up to that.

After he'd left Baker Street, freshly showered and dressed in clean clothes, he made his way to the restaurant where John was reportedly eating. Mrs Hudson had told him that John had gone there with his long-term girlfriend. Apparently they were eating out for the anniversary.

It wasn't exactly the ideal moment or place for their reunion, but Sherlock figured that he didn't get to be too particular about this. Besides, a public location might deter John from reacting too harshly. Sherlock might even be spared a punch in the face if they were amongst so many spectators.

When he finally arrived, it took a great deal of effort to persuade himself to get out of the cab. This entire situation felt wrong. He felt awkward and anxious to a degree that he was unused to. The feeling only grew when he entered the restaurant and saw John and his girlfriend.

Looking at the two of them, Sherlock had never been more terrified. Oh, he'd faced a number of dangers in the past, most of them concentrated in the span of the three previous years, but none of that had ever made him feel quite as uncertain as he did right then.

John looked happy, content. He had a moustache now (Sherlock decided to try to convince him to shave it off), under which was a genuine smile. He looked like he'd moved on. Would it really be such a good idea to disrupt that? Probably not, but Sherlock found that he hated the idea of leaving now without John in tow. He'd spent too long imagining the two of them together again to give up on that now.

Still, as he took each progressive step forward, new layers of guilt and uncertainty bogged down his mind, and he was forced to resist the very powerful impulse to retreat.

He felt like an intruder. John clearly had a new life. There was a sort of domestic contentment that seemed to hang around him that hadn't been there when he and Sherlock had been living together. _This is wrong,_ Sherlock thought. _He wouldn't want me here._ But memories of John standing at his grave floated to the surface of his mind. John had wanted him back at that time. Maybe John's feelings on the matter hadn't changed.

As he approached John's table, he saw the girlfriend — Mary Morstan, he'd been told by Mrs Hudson — excuse herself. She slipped outside, presumably to get them a cab. Sherlock figured that that was as good an opportunity as any.

He walked purposefully toward John's table until he was hovering next to it, feeling unaccountably awkward. _I'm sorry_, he wanted to say. _What I did was inexcusable, but I'm asking you to forgive me anyway._ There were too many words floating through his mind, and he couldn't seem to find the right ones, the ones that would make John understand and forgive him. "Hello," was all that came out in the end. His voice was gruff, as if it hadn't been used in a while. Overall, he felt that he'd failed spectacularly, and they hadn't even really gotten started yet. He mentally kicked himself for using such a generic, meaningless greeting. Three years, and this was all he could come up with.

John stared at him, mouth slightly open, and Sherlock wondered briefly if he'd gone into shock. "You can't be here." His expression was still blank. Shock it was, then. Sherlock could detect faint traces of relief around his eyes that soon morphed into a restrained anger.

"I think you'll find that I can." Again, he was miserably disappointed at his own choice of words. An apology or a plea for forgiveness would have been better than talking back to John while he was in a mild state of shock. Apologies were hard to get out, though, and Sherlock wasn't certain that he would ever really be capable of something like that.

John shook his head, a tight, jerky movement. "No. No, no, you can't." He glanced around at the other patrons and then back at Sherlock, as if trying to verify that they could see him too. "You're dead. You were _dead_. You're in a coffin in the ground. I buried you." His voice was rising, and he stood up to lean menacingly over the table. "How can you be here when _you killed yourself in front of me_?"

Sherlock shifted his weight and tried to remind himself that John's anger was completely justified. Telling himself that didn't exactly help with the suffocating guilt that he was quickly becoming acquainted with, and he found that it was difficult to think of a good way to explain everything when he was dealing with that. "I know this seems impossible," he began, holding up his hands in a placating gesture.

"You're damn right it's impossible!" John's temper had clearly attracted some attention from those at the nearby tables, but the man didn't seem to care that he was making a scene. "You were dead on the ground. I felt for your pulse. There was none. What _the hell_ is going on here?"

_I'm sorry. Please believe me. I'm so sorry. _

"On the rooftop, Moriarty threatened to kill you if I didn't kill myself first," Sherlock hurriedly explained. He kept his voice as even as possible in an attempt to keep his anxiety concealed. "I had no other choice. I jumped, but I'd planned it out beforehand. It was all a magic trick, just like I said. And—"

John's eyes were positively blazing by this point. Sherlock was suddenly grateful that there was still a table between them, as John's posture indicating that he would resort to violence at a moment's notice. "All a magic trick, was it?" His words were softer now, but somehow they hurt more than his shouting had. "Three years of my life, grieving for you, and it was all a bloody magic trick?"

Sherlock didn't know what to say. It was rare for him to be at a loss of words, but at that moment, he had no idea what John wanted to hear, no idea what would make all of this better. I owe you a thousand apologies, he thought, but I can't even get one out. Forgive me. Eventually, he managed, "I needed to make sure the threat was entirely eliminated. I had to eradicate Moriarty's web. Don't you see? You wouldn't have been safe until the last of Moriarty's men had been taken care of. I didn't have a choice."

John scoffed. "Oh, you had a choice. You could have told me. You could have let me in on it, so I wouldn't have had to mourn the loss of my best friend for three years." The lines of his face were set in a sort of bitter anger that Sherlock never wanted to see again. Seeing it now made his stomach drop uncomfortably and caused a tightness to grip his chest. John looked like he hated him in that moment.

John was back to shouting by the end of his statement. Sherlock had hoped that John would be so bound by the trappings of social niceties that he would refrain from shouting like this while they were in a public place. He was quickly realising that that had been a gross miscalculation. Suddenly, he wanted for John to punch him. That would certainly alleviate some of John's anger. If that happened, maybe John would calm down a bit. Maybe he would be more reasonable. Maybe then he won't hate me.

Sherlock opened his mouth to say something more, but he was prevented from doing so by one of the waiters, who had approached with the restaurant manager. "I'm afraid we're going to have to ask both of you to leave," the man said, shooting a dark look at both of them. "You're disrupting the other guests."

Sherlock glared at the waiter and the manager with a ferocity that had them both stepping back. "We were trying to have a very serious discussion, and if you don't mind—"

As he was talking, John had taken that opportunity to grab his coat and begin walking toward the exit. Sherlock turned away from the men he'd been talking to and immediately went after John. They couldn't leave this conversation unfinished. He might not have known much about relationships, but he knew enough to understand that these things needed to be discussed before they could get back to normal. If they left it like this, John would probably always hate him. The very idea of that made Sherlock's gut clench uncomfortably.

"John. John, wait!" he called. _You can't leave while you're still this angry._

But John ignored him. By the time Sherlock caught up, John was already outside and talking to his girlfriend as if nothing had just happened. The two of them began to move toward the cab that was waiting for them.

"You can't just run away from this," Sherlock said, losing some of his composure. He knew, though, that John could walk away if he wanted to, and the idea that John despised him enough to do that made him desperate.

John's girlfriend had glanced over in his direction, shooting him a quizzical look. "What's going on?" she asked John quietly. He didn't respond, just continued trying to usher her into the waiting cab.

"Oh, I see, so you're just going to pretend that none of this ever happened," Sherlock shouted. His words were sarcastic, meant to provoke John into talking to him or shouting at him or punching him. Anything would be better than the current silence. "You're going to pretend that I'm still dead and that your life is still normal, is that it? Would you like it better if I just disappeared again?" He saw John's posture stiffen. That hit a nerve, then. Good. "I'll bet that's exactly what you want." The entire time he spoke, he was mentally begging John to turn around. _ Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me that you never want me to leave again. Care about me again. Please._ "I could leave just as easily as I did before," he continued, his voice cracking horribly as he tried to sound bitter and snappish. "You'd never see me again. You'd never know if—"

John turned to face him, and Sherlock barely had time to register his own relief that John wasn't going to tell him to do what he'd just described. John was acknowledging his presence, not just letting him walk away again. That was good. Very good.

Of course, these thoughts only had a split second to make themselves known before John was charging at Sherlock, his fist drawn back. Mary, the girlfriend, was shouting at John to stop, to just calm down, but it was clear that John was simply going to ignore her words.

Sherlock had been expecting something like this, so he was hardly surprised. He'd forgotten, though, just how much it hurt to be punched by John. Previously, John had only punched him once for a case. Now, however, he'd gotten in at least three blows before the fight seemed to drain out of him. His shoulders sagged and his hand dropped to his side.

Despite the pain that had settled over his cheeks and jaw, Sherlock was able to recognise that John looked tearful and defeated. This was another one of those expressions that he never wanted to see on John's face again.

The urge to comfort was not one that Sherlock was overly familiar with, so he wasn't entirely certain how to go about it. In the end, he gave in to the impulse to pull John closer, wrapping his arms around his friend and holding him there. He pressed his face into John's hair and kept holding on, even when John weakly hit his chest and tried to push him away. Eventually, John slumped against him and returned the embrace. Sherlock thought he could feel a fine tremor running through John's body, but he didn't comment on that. Nor did he comment on the fact that John was quite obviously crying into his shoulder. He simply held John until he calmed, and even then, he didn't let go.

Over the top of John's head, he caught a glimpse of Mary, who was observing the proceedings with a slight smile on her face. She caught Sherlock's glance and nodded once. She knew, he realised. She knew who he was and what had happened. And judging by that nod, she understood. He decided that he would have to wait a month or so before he tried driving her off as he did with all of John's previous girlfriends. This one might not be so bad.

"I hate you," John muttered into the fabric of his shirt.

Sherlock felt relief overtake him as he recognised the lie for what it was. The tension that had gripped him up to that point slowly eased out of him, and he clung onto John more tightly. "I'm sorry," he murmured at last, finally able to get the words out.

"You're a bastard."

Sherlock smiled into John's hair. "I know."

He still felt guilty. He hated himself for making John grieve, and he didn't think that that feeling would ever fully go away. John hadn't even really forgiven him yet, but Sherlock knew that he would eventually. The knowledge that they would be alright again was more than enough to silence to disturbing emotions that were still warring inside of him.


End file.
